SOURCE: Haugen, Einar. “The Edda as Ritual: Odin and His Masks.” In Edda: A Collection of Essays, edited by Robert J. Glendinning and Haraldur Bessason, pp. 3-24. Winnipeg, Can.: University of Manitoba Press, 1983.

In the following essay, Haugen focuses on Odin, a central mythological figure in Eddic verse, in order to discern “the religious beliefs and practices of the Germanic tribes” he embodies.

Orð mér af orði orðz leitaði.

Hávamál 141

The skalds demonstrate by their use of kennings with mythical content that they knew many myths: but they do not tell them, they only allude to them. Snorri in his Edda found it necessary to tell the myths in narrative prose, so that his Christian readers could appreciate the obsolescing allusions. In justifying this practice he proceeded to rationalize and euhemerize the myths, treating them, in short, from an antiquarian point of...